Nation’s Capital Swim Club is looking into constructing a new aquatics facility in Vint Hill, Virginia, though the current proposed $6.4 million price tag is the primary hurdle. At present, the club operates out of 15 pools across the D.C. area with about 1,850 members. They were the top-ranked club in the country according to USA Swimming’s Club Excellence program – which doesn’t control for club size when building rankings.
The club has produced a plethora of National and Olympic champions in its history, including recent stars like Katie Ledecky, now trained at Stanford, who has 5 Olympic gold medals. Current 17-year old US National Team member Phoebe Bacon also trains there.
NCAP owner and CEO Tom Ugast told FaquierNow.com that the mega-club is hoping to build a facility at Vint Hill. That outlet reported that the facility could cost about $6.4 million. Ugast told SwimSwam, though, that at this point in the process, the project would be unworkable at that price. He says that the club currently has about $600,000 to put into the project, and would need to finance the rest.
“At that price tag, it isn’t gonna happen,” Ugast said.
“In the swimming environment, you can not pay that debt load back. It’s got to be a lot lower.”
The club is currently working with architects and general contractors, trying to lower the cost of the facility into a range that the club could eventually pay off through their regular dues and support. FaquierNow reports that the current proposal would feature a 12-lane, 25-yard pool for training that would cost about $4.4 million. A smaller, three-lane, 25-yard pool would cost about $2 million on top of that.
Those figures do include the cost of real estate. NCAP is targeting a site in Vint Hill, with a current contract to buy the 3.2-acre plot of land for $610,000. Vint Hill is about 40 miles west of Washington D.C., across the Virginia border.
Editor’s note: this section has been updated to clarify that Vint Hills is fairly far west of the Virginia border.
Building its own facility would allow NCAP more flexibility, Ugast said. The multi-site club currently rents time at all three of its training bases, and has to schedule around pool availability.
The facility would be designed to pull the training groups from the old indoor pool at Vint Hill, the Warrenton Aquatic and Recreation Center (WARF), and the Freedom Aquatic & Fitness Center in Manassas, which currently house about 48, 55, and 200 members, respectively, according to Ugast. The club leases lanes at WARF for $56,000 from September to mid-March, about $40,000 a year to rent the pool at Vint Hills, and around $180,000 to rent lane space at the Freedom Center.
Ugast says that owning its own facility would give the club more control over their space and use that space more efficiently. He envisions this hypothetical new facility as catering to residents in the New Baltimore area and Prince William County – areas with a lot of children and a lot of new development.
Check with Nitro in Austin. They have two pools and now going on three I read. Lots of lessons I’m sure.
The bigger issue is that more pools, especially 50 meter pools, are needed in the DC area, where competitive swimming (both year-round and summer league) is wildly popular. There is not enough pool space – for example, in Montgomery County MD, one of the biggest high schools with 3,000-plus students has to have practice at 5:30 am because it’s the only pool time they can get. This deters kids who like to swim but don’t want to do year-round USA Swimming clubs and miss out on other activities. The clubs like NCAP and RMSC get most of the prime after-school and early evening slots at the local pools. Building more pools would be great for the sport in the D.C.… Read more »
RMSC is vastly different from NCAP- they are county subsidized, and it is the only USA Swimming club allowed to rent county pool time. All NCAP pool time is rented from non-county facilities, at school like HOLTON arms and Georgetown Prep. I agree with more pools in the county being needed, but comparing pool rentals between these 2 teams does not make sense.
NCAP Alexandria and NCAP West rent from county facilities, specifically the Fairfax and Loudon County Rec Centers. Outside of those two major training sites, I believe the rest of NCAP generally practices at private pools. In terms of the subsidized nature of the rentals, you are correct, I don’t think any NCAP teams swim at subsidized facilities.
Yes I’m aware of the different ways the clubs rent pools in Montgomery county, and I wasn’t comparing the two, as it’s not relevant to my main point that more pool space, both public and private, is needed in the DC area.
15 lanes for $6.4 million doesn’t seem too unreasonable for the DC area; I have to imagine it’s not a a cheap area to build which is probably why they aren’t going for a 50m pool.
I dunno. This doesn’t seem like money well spent with the majority of NCAP meets being held a long way from the Vint Hill area through traffic that we all know can be mind numbing. Why not invest some $$’s in improving air quality at the Tyson’s facility. Air quality there continues to be an ongoing problem for the swimmers.
NCAP likely has no say over facilities improvements at rental pools. I coach at NCAP Alexandria and the air quality at one of our pools is pretty bad, but NCAP (and the other teams that practice at that pool) has been complaining about it for years with no movement made by the facility.
Not sure what meet location has to do with this. This doesn’t sound like a meet facility. It would be for training. For people who live in the area around Vint Hill. All these comments about the bad traffic in NoVA seem to miss the point that this pool is not for kids in Fairfax County. There are a bunch of NCAP-West swimmers who live out near Vint Hill.
Exactly CT SWIM FAN. I’m trying to understand the cost issues. $6.4 million for an indoor swim facility is peanuts compared to the $25 million we’ve been quoted. Break it down, please.
Myrtha?
How does a 3 lane 25 yard pool cost $2 million when a 12 lane 25 yard pool costs $4.4 million? What am I missing?
I’ve given up on understanding building pools.
Yeah the 3 lane 25 yard price sounds absolutely insane
That’s most likely a teaching pool that will bring in “learn to swim bodies” during off peak hours
Wouldn’t it make more sense to make the comp pool bigger with a shallow end and bulkhead between? Unless they are running a completely different system and closed off room? Separate locker rooms & observation area? 2 million for a 3 lane pool building? You’re better off with a 18 lane, 50 meter pool.
I haven’t seen their design so no idea how it got priced. I would agree that sounds really high based on our experience. In general you don’t want to share your learn to swim and training water. Different water temps and different filtration (especially) is highly desired. A separate warm water pool also supports different programming such as silver sneakers, kids bday parties, physical therapy, etc.
It’s worth noting the pools themselves are not that expensive in terms of the overall project costs. Filtration, hvac, structure, finishes, required grading, etc are what eat up the budget.
As someone who coaches and swims at a 50m (our SCY practices run on the short side) pool with concurrent lessons in the shallow end…I hate that setup. I can’t even count how many times over the years we’ve had to get the kids out of the water because a swim lesson kid puked/pooped in the pool. I would much rather have a small separate pool for lessons and such.
Vint Hill is in Prince William County, the second largest jurisdiction in Virginia, current population about 500,000, and is adjacent to Loudoun, a slightly smaller county, both are among the fastest growing (and richest) regions in the country. The need and demand is there, but most jurisdictions in the DC metro region take advantage of pools built on government or tax exempt land, operate as multi-purpose facilities for not just club swimming, but also lessons, recreation, masters, etc. Tough to compete, but the demand exist – GMU’s Fairfax pool (50 meters by 25 yards, 20+ lanes) is utilized from 5 am till 9 pm; and smaller Fairfax county rec facility pools face similar usage demands. Organization via a not for… Read more »
It’s definitely possible. Not saying it’s easy (far from it), but we privately financed our club’s 30k sq ft training facility and opened it just under two years ago. 25y x 25m Myrtha training pool, teaching pool, strength room, etc.
Lots of challenges in the process and many lessons learned. Fundamentally, your business plan has to have multiple revenue streams to support the P&L and service the debt. Unlikely you can get there just renting pool time to swim teams and lap swimmers. Don’t even think about a 25×50 if you plan to put it in a building, the incremental costs are exorbitant and it’s difficult to monetize that much water during non-peak hours. You have to come up… Read more »
$6.4mil with land and facility isnt that bad a price if the pool was 50m x 25yd.
But the article says it’s a 12-lane 25 yd pool (that typically means 25 yards x 25 meters)
Most of this is land too.